Anne Haven - Her Baby's Father

“You’re welcome.”

“I’m going to go get settled and find something to eat. I’ll be back a little before nine.”

Ross walked her to the front hall. “Where are you staying?”

He’d wondered if she still had any friends here who might put her up, but she said, “A motel in Beaverton.”

Upstairs he had two spare bedrooms. For her to waste money on a motel room when she could just stay here didn’t seem right. True, he would probably be better off to keep his distance from her. She affected him more than she should, more than was right, and in the past that had only caused problems. But he didn’t want to think of her completely alone in some cheap, depressing motel room after the conversation she was bound to have with Drew. If he, Ross, couldn’t give her money, at least he could give her a pleasant place to stay the night. And maybe some support as she tried to decide what to do next.

He didn’t open the front door. “Have you checked in?”

“No.”

“So don’t. Stay here, instead.”

“Ross—”

“Save your money for the baby,” he said. “You’ll need it. And it’s no trouble to have you here. I’ve got room upstairs and plenty of food for dinner.”

JENNIFER BROUGHT IN the bare minimum: her toiletries and a few clothes. She’d allowed Ross to talk her into staying at his house but knew she shouldn’t get too comfortable. This was just for one night. It would save her fifty bucks, but tomorrow she would still have to find an apartment.

And Ross’s offer of a place to sleep didn’t mean she was now one of the people he cared about and protected. All it meant was that he was a gentleman, a considerate host, or perhaps that he felt he owed her a small favor due to their past acquaintanceship.

The room he’d given her was at the back of the house, directly over the kitchen, with windows that looked down into the garden. It had pale-peach walls. A cream-striped duvet covered the double bed and the spindled headboard wore the soft patina of age. Summer evening light slipped in the window and warmed the eastern side of the room.

Much better than an anonymous motel, she admitted.

Jennifer took a quick shower in the attached bathroom, which also connected to another guest room. She dried off with a butter-soft towel and dressed in fresh clothes, feeling a lot more human without the layer of dust and grit from her drive up from San Francisco. After running a comb through her still-damp hair, she joined Ross in the kitchen.

He stood at the island, snapping the ends off a pile of green beans. “Feeling refreshed?” he asked.

“Mmm-hmm.” She walked over and took a seat. The dog, Frank, was curled up on a cushion by the back door. She wagged her stumpy tail at Jennifer and then put her head down on her paws.

“I overestimated the contents of my pantry,” Ross said. “I need to run out to the store for some tomato sauce. Do you want to come along? You’re welcome to stay here if you don’t.”

She slipped off her stool. “I’ll come.”

He was her child’s uncle. To spend some time with him, to learn more about his life, wouldn’t be so bad, right?

Ross wiped his hands on a tea towel and led her to the front door, where he grabbed his keys and let them both out. He glanced over as she descended the steps beside him, not offering to help but seeming alert to the possibility of her needing it. She wasn’t so pregnant that her movements had become that difficult, but she knew the day would arrive.

He opened the passenger door of his Camry for her. As she settled herself in the seat and fastened her safety belt she studied his hospital ID card, which was clipped to the dash. The photo was a few years old. His dark hair was longer and he wore a haggard expression. He had deep bags under his eyes. It looked as if it had been taken in the middle of the night, partway through a grueling shift.

She watched him for a minute as he drove down the hill, leaving the residential area and entering the outskirts of downtown Portland. “Is being a doctor what you expected?”

Ross smiled a little ruefully, perhaps remembering things he’d said to her a long time ago. “I was an idealist, wasn’t I?”

“Reality is different?”

“Reality is always different. Especially from what you imagine it’ll be when you’re barely out of your teens.”

“So, what’s it like?”

“Harder. Sometimes more boring. You wouldn’t think so, but even emergencies can feel routine sometimes. And I can’t say I like the business aspects of medicine.”

“But helping people?”

“Oh, that’s gratifying,” he said. “Especially at the free clinic my friend Kyle runs.”

“Where’s that?”

“Old Town. We get lots of patients who are homeless. Also people with low incomes who can’t afford any other kind of health care.”

He talked about it in a matter-of-fact tone, and answered several more questions. She sensed he wouldn’t want her to make a big deal about his volunteer service there, but she was, actually, impressed. Impressed he’d found a way to follow through on some of the ideals he’d professed nine years ago.

“How do you have time to do that?” she asked as they pulled into the little grocery store parking lot. “I thought doctors worked eighty-hour weeks.”

“I worked that much as a resident. Now it only feels that way. I spend less than fifty hours a week at the hospital, though I have to do a bit more at home. Paperwork and keeping up on my reading.”

Ross explained how the shifts were set up at Northwest Hospital. He had day shifts for a few weeks and then a series of night shifts, with a break in between to adjust his internal clock. She’d caught him at the end of a night series, so he had a few days free.

They did their shopping and returned home. Ross picked up the meal preparations where he’d left off. Half an hour later he presented a meal of chicken, pasta and green beans.

As they ate they ranged over many subjects, but stayed away, as if by mutual consent, from anything that had to do with babies or sleazy brothers or family illnesses. In the security and ease of Ross’s house, Jennifer allowed herself to imagine, briefly, what it would be like to have had a child the traditional way. The way she’d always fantasized about. To be married and live in a nice house. To plan to conceive a baby and enjoy the act of making it. To share in the expectations and fears of pregnancy, to raise a child together in a house like this one…

Dreams. Just dreams. As Ross had said, reality was always different. She shouldn’t waste her time when her life was so unlike the fantasy, when she had a meeting with her baby’s father in less than two hours—the father who was married to someone else and expecting another baby.

So she let herself enjoy the rest of the meal and even Ross’s company. But she didn’t fool herself that the interlude was anything other than a temporary glimpse into another person’s life.

Nine years earlier

I’ve heard all about Ross Griffin by the time he gets home from college. Drew calls him Mr. Perfect because he always gets a four-point, does tons of community service, was student body president in high school, excels at sports, speaks two foreign languages, gets his car’s oil changed every three thousand miles without fail, and never, ever leaves dirty dishes in the kitchen sink. You can tell Drew kind of resents him for it, but you can tell he worships him, too. He tries to be like Ross. Like, he’s into this weird band called The Others that nobody in high school’s ever heard of, and three weeks ago when we went into Ross’s room to check out his vintage skateboard I saw an old concert ticket sitting on his desk.